THE WARNING OF THE LAST MOON
When Nature issues a decree, the execution thereof is pitiless. She
recks naught of dynasties or nations. When she would have a clean
page on which to write, she erases, if needs be, and with inexorable
completeness, the fairest characters she may have inscribed previously.
The smallest and the greatest, the tiny grass blade, the towering
forest giant, the lowly anthill, the lofty mountain, the blind worm in
the dust, proud man, the "lord of creation"--be any or all of these in
her path. Nature breaks them, and, with her ally, Time, makes smooth
the page for her next writing.
Only those who are wise and instructed may pore over such an erasure
and, from a faint trace here, a blur there, partly read and partly
guess at that which once was writ.
Years uncounted, Sardanes had flourished in the wastes of the
Southland. Then, the great All-Mother, always unhurried, drew a
steadfast white finger across the valley.
Only a fortnight elapsed from the day on which the Gateway to the
Future sent forth its first flare of fire, that followed centuries in
which it had been dark--only a brief fortnight, and the Gateway alone
of all the volcanic ring still sent fire and smoke heavenwards. All
the sister hills lay silent and lifeless, their furious spirits spent
and gone elsewhere, their seamed summits crowned with the white of
Antarctic snows.
First to yield was the holy river Ukranis. Ice bound its sources
until it became a mere streamlet, soon paralyzed by the cold into a
glittering thread. A gray rime crept over the green velvet of the
grass, and a white pall covered it softly. The blue roses withered and
fell. The grain in the fields ceased to grow and lay lifeless. Bushes
and shrubs died. The giant trees shed their faded foliage, their roots
strangled in the chill of death, their palsied branches brittle and
breaking down under a weight of snow. The bright birds of many hues
that had flashed back and forth through the forest glades and lanes
fluttered to the ground with mournful cries and died. The hum of insect
life was stilled. On the hillsides, the little brown rabbits shivered
in their burrows, nestled together and slept forever.
With all of these, there passed a hundred things, animate and
inanimate, that had their living like in no other spot on the whole
earth.
Only man and his closest companions lingered. At the foot of the
terraced hill of Hephaistos all of Sardanes that still lived were
gathered--all, with the exception of Minos the king and his company on
the hill of Latmos.
At the north end of the valley, with their backs to the last of the
flaming hills and their faces towards the encroaching snows, the
Sardanians pitched a great camp. Some few small houses that once had
been those of the tillers of the fields, were occupied by the lords
and their families. The people, nearly two thousand of them, camped on
the ground with blankets and furs and some articles of their wooden
household furniture, each little family in its own group.
Against the creeping white enemy that had invaded the valley, they set
a barrier of flame. A hundred axmen, working in shifts, with as many
ponies, cut and dragged trees from near-by hillsides. Hour after hour
they piled the fires with wood from the hymanan forests, and kept a
blazing ring around the camp. When one party was wearied, another took
up the work.
So, with hope departing, they kept life in their bodies for a few days.
To that end of the valley were brought all of the small horses in the
kingdom, to the number of several hundreds. There was not enough fodder
to maintain the poor animals for long, and they died by the score. The
slopes of the Gateway swarmed with wild goats, driven thither with
all the rest by the sinister white invader that had crept to their
loftiest haunts in the cliffs, and had cut them off from their food
supplies. They and the horses were all that remained of animal life in
Sardanes, except the dogs of Minos on Latmos.
Bitter as was the exigency, Analos the priest would not suffer the
people to ascend to the terraces of the Gateway, where was still
some warmth from within the hill. So strong was the grip of their
superstitions and his threats, that, shivering, facing death and
desperate, the people still heeded and obeyed him.
Analos, guardian of the portals of the Gateway, dwelt alone with the
majesty of his god, save for the wild goats, which cared naught for
orders, priest or god.
Watch was kept no longer at the mouth of the cavern where Minos and
his party lay. Well it was for them that it was so, else they had
perished of cold. No longer was the cave tenable without fire. Like the
people below in the valley, the refugees were forced to work in shifts
of axmen to keep the lives within them. In the cave a fire roared
constantly, and another without on the plateau.
Analos had given up his battle against the king. It was by his orders
that his spearsmen kept watch at the cave no longer. His fiery spirit
was burning itself out within him, and he was turning cold, as the
lifeless hills turned cold. It seemed to him that his will roamed
through the chambers of his mind, and in them could find no more of
anger against Minos; nor could it conjure up, as it had been want to
do, more terrible behests of the god Hephaistos. Chaos had come to
Analos, and let it come, said he, for no more might he read the mind of
his mighty master and interpret his wishes.
On the Gateway he dwelt alone and in a daze, and waited, waited, for
he knew not what. But he was to see one more vision--wild as any his
madness ever brought to him.
He hardly ever slept. Hour by hour he paced the paths of the upper
terrace, before the carven portal of the cliff, until there came a
day when he found that he could enter the winding way that led to the
ancient temple of death on the crater ledge.
On the stone steps of the sanctuary the priest laid himself, worn
out with his vigil, and there sleep bound him fast. For hours he
slumbered on. He awoke with a great start of horror, the fear of a
half-remembered dream, a monstrous vision. He rushed to the brink of
the sheer ledge.
* * * * *
Hundreds of feet below him writhed the fiery lake, wafting upwards its
roseate mists and vapors, as it had for centuries. It was once more at
its ancient level--_or was it below?_ He stared; and as he gazed, it
seemed to him that, inch by inch, very slowly, the seething maelstrom
was sinking!
Suddenly realization came to him. The flaming crown of the Gateway was
gone. The fires of the Gateway were going!
Poised at the ledge's brink, he flung wide his arms. "Hephaistos!
Hephaistos! Master, whither goest thou?" he shrieked. The dull rumble
of the fires, the soughing of the wind in the mighty cone, the soft
curling reek of the fire mists drifting by him were his only answer.
Came the thought of those below in the valley, and he rushed from the
temple and passed down the terraces.
Already snow was falling on their green declivity.
His appearance on the side of the mountain was greeted with a shivering
moan from the people. When the Gateway had gone dark, and new terror
had assailed them, they still had held to the word of the priest. No
one of them set foot on the holy hill. Quaking, they crowded together
at its foot and waited the coming of Analos. A thousand eyes were upon
him as he went down the terraces--not the arrogant, masterful man they
always had known him, but a bowed and silent figure, walking with
folded arms and eyes cast down, great eyes that glowed but dimly in
their caverns. Even so, he was still the master--and still mad.
As he paused on the lowermost terrace, they crowded closely about him.
A nation held its breath and waited for his words. He raised his head
and his gaze swept over the close ranks of the people. He held out his
arms toward them in silence for a moment before he spoke.
"A message I bear to his people from the mighty Lord Hephaistos," he
said clearly. "Patience for but a little time, and he shall hear it.
But first I must go to Latmos. Take me thither."
Six strong men made a litter and carried him, fighting their way
through snow almost knee-deep, to the plateau on Latmos.
Hunters of the king, laboring at their fire on the plateau, saw the
party on its way. One of them summoned Minos.
"The red priest hath come again from the Gateway," he shouted into the
cave.
Armed and ready, Minos the king came forth, but laid his weapons down
when he saw only six unarmed and gloomy men. Analos clambered from his
litter and faced him.
"Once more, and this the last time of all, cometh Analos, priest of
Hephaistos, to look upon thy face, thou Minos, who wast king," he said.
"Nay, answer me not in anger, for I speak not in anger or bitterness,"
he continued quickly, when the king would have replied. "Hear me
through. That which hath passed between us, let it pass and be past. No
longer beareth Analos command of his god to do harm to thee or thine."
He raised his arm and pointed to the south up the valley. Minos saw
that the arm trembled, and the man was swaying.
"Sardanes lieth dead," the priest went on. "Life cometh to the valley
no more, for the god goeth hence forever, and leaveth all things behind
him as doubtless they were before he came in the ancient days and made
his home and guided hither his chosen people.
"Yonder in the Gateway, the god tarryeth to take with him his faithful
ones. He groweth impatient, for even there the fires fall apace--"
"How meanest thou?" Minos broke in.
"This; that, with the passing of the god shall pass every soul in
Sardanes. Analos goeth hence to the Gateway to muster his people. With
music and singing and rejoicing shall they follow the ancient god
through the Gateway to the Future, to what new, far land of promise he
hath prepared for them."
The king drew a quick breath, but held his peace. Leaning on the
shoulders of two of his bearers, for his strength waned, Analos turned
his somber eyes on the hunters.
"Ye men of Minos," he said, and his voice was almost gentle, "come yet
with all the rest, I pray you. Your people await you, with your wives
and your little ones. It is in the mind of Analos that, because ye have
been faithful to your master in his folly, the punishment therefor
shall not fall on you. Much may be forgiven a loyal servant, even
though he setteth his master before his god. Analos biddeth you come,
for time groweth short, and darkness falleth.
"And thou, O Minos, come thou also, an indeed thou wilt. I know not
what shall be meted out to thee of the god's mercy. Perchance thy
punishment shall be most passing bitter. That is in the hands of
Hephaistos, and no more in those of Analos, his servant. Analos hath
no further hate for thee in his heart, or for the maid Memene. Come ye
both, if ye are so minded, in peace and with these others. Analos hath
spoken."
"Priest, thou art mad still," replied Minos, "but not so mad as once
thou wert. The valley lieth dead indeed, and Minos knoweth not if ever
it will bloom again. Thou mayest bend the people to thy crazed mind's
fancy. Minos bendeth not. Here will he await the end, until the end."
Before the king had quit speaking, the priest fell wearily into his
litter, and at a sign from his hand, his men started down the slopes
through the snow.
* * * * *
On the day following the misadventure of Captain Scoland, Polaris and
Zenas Wright, all their preparations made, set forth on the road to
Sardanes.
Latter-day science has contributed much to the safety and comfort of
the explorer. On the sledge of the adventurers was packed in small
space a supply of provisions for both men and animals that would last
them for a month, yet which did not constitute too great a weight for
the dogs to draw. The sledge itself was far higher than the old affair
of wood with which the son of the snows had set out on his previous
perilous trips. Wherever lightness would not detract from the strength
to withstand straining, the vehicle was constructed of aluminum.
The travelers were armed heavily. Ill would it go with any shape of man
or beast that should cross their path with threatening intent. From the
belt of Polaris swung a brace of automatic pistols of the heaviest
caliber. Strapped handily on the sledge were three high-powered rifles.
Old Zenas Wright contented himself with one pistol, like those of his
companion.
Not all of the trappings of the younger man were the product of
civilization. He carried in his hand a stout spear of his own
workmanship. On that, and on the long knife at his side, he depended,
in a pinch, fully as much as he did on the guns.
Farewells were soon said at the camp, a ceremony which Scoland was not
on hand to participate in. Polaris laid out his harness, inspanned his
seven dogs, with big Boris in the lead, and cracked his long whip. From
shore and ship a cheer went up as the dogs sprang forward. The two
wayfarers responded with waves of their hands, then bent their backs to
the toil of the road, vanished over the crest of the ridge, and were
gone.
For years more than twice the span of Polaris's life, Zenas Wright had
been an active and athletic man. He had made no empty boast when he had
said that he was a traveler of parts, and able to hold his own on any
path. If the pace they set was not quite as swift as Polaris might have
maintained alone, it was far from slow, and the old explorer kept it up
tirelessly and uncomplaining.
Mile after mile fell behind the flying feet of the agile beasts and
gliding men. Occasionally they stopped and made brief camp, but the
pressure of their errand spurred them to the limit of endurance.
Weather favored them. They met no biting tempests with blinding snows
to confuse and delay them. Lack of clear light was their only serious
obstacle. The skies remained overcast and leaden, and no golden sun
rays came to point their way.
"More light I could wish for gladly," said Polaris, "but I think the
very instinct within me will not let me lose this road."
Often he scanned the horizon to the south, frequently halting the dogs
and ascending to the summit of craggy snow hummock or low hill, with
which the great plain was besprinkled. He also studied continually the
formation of the ice-clad barrier range to their left, its sinister
peaks in silhouette against the sky.
Used for years to fix his bearings by the landmarks set by nature,
the eye of the snow dweller was photographic, his memory unerring. At
length he found the path he sought. Spying afar from the crest of a
craggy eminence, he noted the combination of contour and surroundings
that told him they were near to the end of their journey.
He swung the dog team from the eastward course, and veered away to the
south. Soon they came to a long depression, that wound southward among
the low hills, in much the semblance of a sometime traveled highway.
With kindling eye, Polaris pointed down the reaches of its sinuous
course.
"Yonder, old man, stretches the Hunters' Road, and Sardanes lies at its
farther end!" he cried. "In a few more hours we shall know the best or
worst of this long trip of ours."
Even with the aid of the powerful glasses carried by Zenas Wright,
Polaris could not pierce the distances to where the volcanic hills lay
around the valley.
"If all were well, there should be at least some flare of fires against
this dull sky," he muttered, "yet I see none."
Guiding the dogs into the road, Polaris urged them on at a pace faster
than any they had yet taken, for he knew that this path was free from
obstacles or pitfalls. As they came nearer to their goal, both men grew
taciturn. Zenas Wright was absorbed with the food for thought that his
eager old eyes supplied him. Polaris was oppressed with a prescience of
tragedy. Why were there no fires on the horizon, and why no signs of
travel on the white reaches of the Hunters' Road?
Once more they camped against a bluff cliff at a turn in the road, and
then went on again. First with the glasses, and then with their eyes
alone, they picked upon the dim outlines of the Sardanian mountain
ring, dull white against the dun skies. Polaris shook his head gloomily.
"Much my heart does misgive me, old Zenas Wright," he said, "for I fear
we are too late. Green, yon hills should be, and dark at their summits,
but they are white. The breeze blows from them to us, but is tempered
with no warmth. I fear that the great calamity which your science has
foretold is complete, and that all Sardanes is passed away."
As they drew nearer to the mountain ring, out to their left across the
snow-fields, they saw the evidences of a mighty disturbance of the face
of the earth. Hills riven in twain, tremendous fissures and pits marked
a long, wide scar that extended from the base of the hills and reached
northward farther than they could see.
"Some giant force has passed that way," Polaris said, "the like of
which I never saw in these lands. It is not unlike the track of a
giant's sledge across the face of the country. How do you read it?"
"It is the path taken by the volcanic fires on their way from here to
where we found them blazing on Ross Sea," Zenas Wright answered. "As
they tore their way through the channels opened to them, they writhed
and shook the earth and rock above them, and left this appearance when
they had gone. That would have been a sight worth watching and study.
The earth out there must have pitched and tossed like waves of the sea."
He paused, and his face was very solemn.
"I, too, am afraid that it's all no use," he said slowly. "That seam
out there is cold, or there would be a fog above it so thick we could
not trace it. That means that the fires have been gone for some time.
It looks bad. But let us hurry on and see for ourselves."
* * * * *
They reached the north pass of Sardanes and found it half choked with
snow where it always had been bare. It was a comparatively easy matter
to sledge up and through it. Halfway up the pass the dogs balked and
refused to go forward. Slinking and whining, the brutes skulked in
their harness and cowered back against the sides of the sledge, nor
would word or whip urge them on.
Hardly less keen than those of the animals themselves, the senses of
the son of the snows soon warned him of the danger's nature. He sniffed
at the air of the pass and turned smilingly to the scientist.
"A bear," he said, and then, contemptuously; "these dogs are of a poor
spirit or we would have to hold them back rather than whip them on.
Stay you here and try to quiet them. I will go on and clear the way."
He took a rifle from the sledge and laid down his spear, saying almost
apologetically as he did so, "Well would I love to fight him after my
old fashion and show you sport, but we haste, and have no time for
sports."
Taking off his snowshoes and loosening the knife in his belt, Polaris
ran forward around a turn of the rock. Hardly had he disappeared when
the air reechoed to a burst of horrid howling, followed by the spitting
crack of the rifle.
Polaris found his foe a few rods up the pass, a lean old bear, almost
toothless, his once snow-white coat rusted to a dingy yellow, his claws
well worn. He was feeling his way cautiously down the snow-covered
rocks. With the wind blowing from him, he had no warning of the
presence of an enemy until he saw Polaris kneeling scarcely fifteen
feet from him. Then he howled indeed. It was his last challenge. A
bullet from the powerful rifle, truly aimed, plowed through his shaggy
breast and found his heart.
Whipping out his knife, Polaris cut the throat of the huge beast and
hacked a piece of flesh from its shoulder. He ran down the path again
and threw the bloody fragment before the dogs.
"An old trick," he laughed. "They smell the blood, they taste it, and
they fear no more."
Up through the pass the travelers drove their team, past the carcass of
the bear, and stood at the lip of the valley slope. Sardanes lay before
them. Zenas Wright groaned aloud. Polaris Janess threw wide his arms in
a gesture of sorrow, and his face grew solemn with pity.
"_Gone_," he whispered; "men and women and children, and the wonders
they wrought--gone, and the snows have covered all!"
As they stood there, the Antarctic sun, freed at last from its cloud
bonds, shot a sullen red ray over the hills and down the valley, and
laid bare the full measure of the ruin. From the gleaming cap of the
Gateway to the Future, to Mount Helior in upper Sardanes the valley was
banked with snow, its mansions hidden, its fields and forests buried
deep. Only on the higher slopes was evidence that life had ever been.
There the giant hymanan trees still stood against the storms, their
branches bleak and bare, thrust out above the white masses that covered
more than half their mighty trunks. Behind them loomed the cliffs of
the mountain ring, their sheer sides also splotched with white.
Some distance down the valley, Polaris fancied he could distinguish a
mass bulking up in the snow that he deemed marked where the Judgment
House stood.
"In the hollow of the Gateway hill, and in caves in the mountain sides,
perchance there is that which will repay your visit somewhat, old man,"
Polaris said to the geologist. "All else is dead."
Before the old man could answer the dogs became suddenly uneasy,
growling and snarling. Polaris bent forward and cupped his ear with his
hand. A long-drawn howling floated across the valley from the western
range. "More bears," he said, then started and turned a flashing eye on
his companion.
"Come on, old Zenas Wright!" he cried. "More than bears are here.
Yonder howl dogs also. Did I not know that my gray brothers were dead
these many months, all but Marcus, I might swear I heard their own
voices. But, where dogs are, there are men also. Here is a new riddle.
Come!"
Urging the huskies, they shot down the snow crusts of the hillside and
started across the valley.
* * * * *
When he reached the Gateway from his last visit to Mount Latmos, Analos
despatched four men and a pony sledge to the deserted Judgment House
to fetch to the hill of the god the huge drum of time. When it was
brought, he appeared on the steps to the first of the terraces. His
priests clustered about him in a black-robed group.
He gazed down into the upturned faces of his people. At a signal,
both priests and people knelt. For a space the crackling of the vast
camp-fires was the only sound. Analos gathered his strength for what
was to be his last speech. Never had man an audience more breathlessly
attentive.
"Hephaistos calleth his children," the priest began, his voice hollow
and solemn, his words falling slowly. "Through me, Analos, high priest
in Sardanes, his life-long servant, he calleth. It is not for man to
question the ways of the ancient god. Analos questioneth not. When his
master calleth, he answereth, 'Whither thou leadest me, there will I
follow on.' I am ready. Are ye also ready, my people?"
In the pause that followed the question rose the voice of the Lord
Ukalles of upper Sardanes. "Whither calleth the god, O master? Read
thou his message to Sardanes."
Piercing clear the voice of the high priest in answer:
"To the Gateway to the Future calleth he his children, through the
portals of the temple of death to the glory that lieth beyond, whither
every Sardanian hath trod since the land was new."
A shiver passed through the kneeling ranks, and a whisper, half a moan,
from two thousand human throats. Again spoke the Lord Ukalles: "Must
this thing be, master? Is this the end? Is there no other way?"
"This thing must be," answered the red priest steadily. "There is no
other way. This is the end in Sardanes. Be ye brave, all my people.
In a far country, brighter even than the fair Sardanes ye have known,
Hephaistos will welcome you. Think; since our forefathers came up from
the seas to this place, no Sardanian ever hath lived, save one man
only, but hath passed the Gateway when his time came. Without fear and
without flinching have they passed whither the god beckoned them. And,
if they died elsewhere, faithful friends brought them hither, and still
they passed the portals. Thousands have gone this road. Will ye falter
now, when the great god doth summon you to accompany him?"
Again he paused. From the people rose a many-voiced murmur, and its
burden was, "We are ready, master, lead thou us on."
"The end hath struck, indeed," cried the Lord Ukalles. "Now is no time
for words or thoughts, but to do the bidding of the god. It is fitting
that the lords of Sardanes should take their proper station. Stand ye
forth, my fellow nobles of the land, ye and yours."
In measured tones he called the roll of the mountains, omitting only
Latmos, Epamon, and Lokalian. Minos dwelt on Latmos, Patrymion of
Epamon and Garlanes of Lokalian had journeyed on before. Man by man
the nobles answered and took their places at the foot of the terrace
with their families. Brought face to face with doom, the people met it
sad-eyed and silent, but unflinching.
"It is well," cried Analos. "The children of the god fear not. Form in
procession, my people, as for a festival. Cast wood on the fires to
light the way."
Under this direction the huge drum was hoisted to the first terrace.
"Beat the drum, Karthanon, while the people make ready," commanded
Analos. Karthanon the Aged bared a withered arm and laid on with
measured stroke. Below the drum gathered the trumpeters. To the blare
and boom of the music the Sardanians formed their ranks.
"When all is ready, Analos leadeth," said the priest. He staggered to
the steps that led to the second terrace, and prostrated himself in
prayer, with his face on the lowest step.
Across the valley from in front of the cave on Latmos, Minos and his
men and the Lady Memene watched these proceedings from afar. The
hymanan forests were down or bare, and they could see clearly by the
light of the fires that ringed the camp. When they saw the people
marshaling on the slope at the foot of the Gateway, and the first
booming stroke of the drum beat up to their ears across the intervening
space, the hunters drew apart and conferred among themselves in low
tones.
Then came Zalos, their leader, and knelt at the feet of the king.
Tears rolled down the face of the sturdy captain.
"Lord Minos the king, I have served thee faithfully for many years,
thee and thy royal house," he said in a broken voice. "As long as there
was fighting to be done for thee, I and these men of mine would have
stood with thee until death found us all. But now there is no more
fighting, and here is the end of all things. Yonder go our people. With
them are our wives, our fathers and mothers and children. At the gates
of the temple of death do they stand and hold out their hands to us.
Lord, think us not disloyal. We ask thee that we may join them and die
with them. O king, if thou goest not also, let us go to them."
He bowed his head on Minos's hand, and wet it with his tears. The king
raised him gently.
"Zalos, old friend and comrade, faithful and true hast thou been unto
the end, thou and all these men, thy friends and mine. Now do I
absolve thee from thy allegiance and bid thee farewell. Go--go freely,
and where thy hearts are calling thee. Minos hath nothing to forgive
of thee, and much to thank. Farewell." In the flickering of the fire,
tears gleamed on the cheek of the king also.
* * * * *
One by one the men came to him and knelt and kissed his hand. As they
were about to depart, they heard the lad Alternes crying out within the
cave, and he climbed over the rock in the passage and staggered to the
side of the fire. He was weak with illness. His cheeks flamed and his
eyes shone bright with fever.
"I heard the drum calling me," he cried. "Ah, look, the people gather
at the Gateway!" He pointed across the valley. "A great festival is
toward."
"Aye, lad," said Zalos, "the festival of Death. Yonder all Sardanes is
gathered to march through the Gateway."
For a moment the boy stared, wild-eyed.
"Why, then, must Alternes go, too!" he said. "Take me with thee, Zalos.
Farewell, my king." He reeled toward Minos, but his strength gave way.
He pitched on his face, and a stream of blood welled from his lips.
Minos bent and laid his hand on the lad's head. At a sign, four of the
hunters picked the boy up and wrapped him in his cloak.
"Take me with you," said the king. "It is his right.... Lady Memene,
what of thee?" he asked. "Here is the end. Thy people march to their
last long sleep before the darkness cometh. There on the Gateway are
thy father and all thy house. Goest thou also?"
The girl gazed at him for a moment, while Zalos and the hunters waited
on her answer. She drew herself up proudly.
"Memene goeth not," she said; "here will she await the end, whatever it
may be."
The hunters raised their arms in silent salute to the king and the
maid, then turned, bearing the lad among them, and ran down the
hillside, the snow spurting from beneath their flying feet.
When they arrived at the Gateway their loved ones welcomed them, only
to bid them farewell for a longer journey than any they had yet taken.
For the procession was formed and on the move.
At its head, leaning on two of his servants, Analos the high priest
passed up the terraces. Behind him strode the others of the company of
Hephaistos. Two stalwart priests bore the drum of time, and Karthanon
the Aged walked beside, smiting it as he went. After them came the
nobles of the valley and their households, and then the concourse of
the people, marching slowly and with raised faces.
As they set foot on the topmost terrace, the priests took up the chant
of death, softly at first, and then with increasing volume. Voice after
voice joined in the measured chant. The procession crossed the upper
terrace, entered the lofty carved arch of the portal, and wound upward
through the spiral passage to the edge of the Gateway's crater.
On the steps of the temple of death Analos took his stand, supporting
himself against one of its pillars. The priests with the drum gathered
before him.
"Forward without fear, children of Hephaistos!" he shouted. "Falter
not! There waiteth the ancient god." He pointed to the brink of the
ledge.
Firmly the trumpeters marched on, the red glow of the fire mists
playing on their faces. They reached the brink, and they faltered not,
and their trumpets sounded no more. On marched the nobles and the
people, still singing as they marched. If any Sardanian, man or woman
or child, blenched or cried out that day, the press of the people
carried them on, the mighty chant drowned their voices. No coward
turned back. Even a number of the small horses entered the hill with
their masters, whinnying and nuzzling with their soft muzzles. They
passed the Gateway with the rest.
Nearly the last of all came Zalos and his hunters. They carried with
them the corpses of Alternes, who had not lived to reach the mountain.
At length it was done. Only the priests remained on the ledge. The
reverberations of the smitten drum and the roaring of the fires in the
fearful pit overbore their feeble chant.
"Forward, my brothers, true servants of the god!" cried Analos.
"Forward, and I will follow you! Analos shall be the last of all, his
duty done, his work complete."
With set faces, and bearing with them the drum of time, the members of
the black-robed company advanced. Before the last stroke of Karthanon
had ceased to echo through the hollows of the mountain, Analos stood
alone. Staggering and weak, he, too, advanced. To his disordered fancy
it seemed that the curling vapors before him were thick with passing
souls.
Half the distance from the steps of the temple to the great hall he
stumbled and fell. Faintness numbed his limbs.
His head swam dizzily.
"Hephaistos! Master," he cried in terror, "desert me not here!
Strength! Grant me strength!"
He struggled madly. He clawed at the very rock of the floor, and
dragged himself inch by inch toward the death he sought. His breath
came in gasps. His jaw fell. The iron spirit of the man held back
dissolution itself until his will was accomplished. Groping and
crawling, he reached at last the polished chute in the rock, cut there
by the priests centuries before and worn smooth by the passing of
thousands of Sardanians.
"I thank thee, master," he sighed, content. He rolled into the chute,
and his body shot downward and outward above the fiery lake. His red
robe spread wide as he took the plunge, like the wings of some immense
crimson bird swooping downward from a flaming sky to a blazing sea.
* * * * *
Minos the king stood by his fire on the hill of Latmos. With folded
arms he stood, and the Lady Memene sat near to him on a log of hymanan
wood cut for the burning. Their eyes strained across the white
Sardanian valley. Both were silent. They saw the long procession of
those about to die sweep up the fire-lighted steeps of the Gateway to
the Future. They heard the chant of death from two thousand throats
as the people marched across the upper terrace and through the gloomy
portal of the cliff, to the music of the trumpeters and the booming of
the drum of time.
When the last man had passed within, they still heard the muffled
thunder of the drum. Then that ceased also. Strong spirited as were
they both, their hearts seemed to stop with it.
"Now art thou and I and Kalin the last Sardanians in the living world,"
the king said. So he spoke, not knowing that under the rocks and the
snows, many long leagues to the northward, Kalin, the priest, lay
asleep where Polaris Janess had left him nearly two years before.
"That end is come which the priest preached and the people feared,"
he continued, "the end which Minos could not believe would come. Nor
doth he believe yet, nor will so believe, that it is wrought of a god.
Nature hath withdrawn her mercy, and all things in Sardanes die.
"Believing not, Minos hath tarried. Now he is a king no longer. He hath
no people left to rule. Naught remaineth but a snow-swept valley which
death hath touched."
From her seat on the log the girl arose. She stood in front of Minos,
so close that her soft breath fanned his cheek. A slow, red flush that
was not of the firelight overspread her features. Her dark eyes flashed
like jewels. She spoke, and her heart was in her voice.
"Little of all that thou hast valued is left to thee, Lord Minos," she
said. "Thy people have turned against thee and are gone. Thy home is a
ruin. The fast-falling snows cover the land thou didst love well. Some
few friends were faithful unto the death, but death came, and they left
thee. All that thou hadst to lose, thou hast lost, save thy life, thy
dogs yonder, and one other thing, which, perchance, thou wilt value but
little. In all the world, Lord Minos, there is not one to take thee by
the hand and call thee friend.
"This is the hour which Memene hath foreseen and awaited. Say not that
thou art no more king, my Lord Minos. Thou art _my_ king. It was my
will to stand beside thee when all the rest had passed--to tell thee
that with thee I fear no danger and no death. I love thee, Minos--"
Like a man in a spell, Minos heard her words. Closer to him she swayed.
He felt the softness of her body against his breast. From the folds of
her cloak her white arms crept up about his neck and drew his face to
hers. Their cheeks touched. Flame answered flame. With a deep-voiced
cry, "_Memene!_" he caught her to him and crushed her lips against his
own.
For a time they stood, locked fast in each other's arms. Then Minos
lifted his face to the scintillant stars in the pale Antarctic sky. "If
somewhere above there dwelleth a power which doth guide the destinies
of men, Minos giveth thanks," he called, exulting--"thanks for the will
within him which hath stood firm to wrest from dark days of strife and
death one moment such as this!"
He shook his fist toward the south. "Come, thou wild spirit of the
wastes," he cried, "o'erwhelm the valley of Sardanes with thy snows and
thy tempests! Minos thou canst not daunt. Thou mayest kill, but thou
canst not take away that which this day hath given!"
Again he bent above the girl, and saw her face all rosy and dimpled,
where before it had been cold and indifferent. Mockery dwelt there no
longer. The lights of love shone so strongly as to shake his stout
heart.
Had he won her but to lose her?
"Ah, Memene, Memene, loved one," he whispered, "love like ours was
never doomed to die here in the snows. There must--there shall be some
way to cheat death--"
From within the cave the baying of Pallas and her brood interrupted
him. He started, his every nerve athrill with a new thought.
"There _is_ a way!" he cried. "The beasts of the stranger! Whither
passed Polaris and Kalin and the Rose maid, to that far-away land they
named America, there shall we fare, also--there where is light and
warmth for love. When the long night hath passed, my princess, then
shall we journey northward!"
Memene, nestling close to him, replied, "Would that it might be so, O
king of mine. Would that time might give us of its mercy and its years.
Then would Memene show thee how a Sardanian girl can love. But if so
much be not granted to us, and cold death cometh, Memene shall be well
content to die with thee."
He led her gently through the passage, and with infinite tenderness
lifted her over the rock and into the cavern. When they were come
thither, Minos suddenly smacked his thigh, and a short and foolish
laugh burst from him. He looked at her, abashed.
"What is it that maketh thee to laugh thus and look so strangely?"
asked the girl.
"Why, lady," he said, shamefacedly, "it did strike upon my mind that
every priest in Sardanes hath gone, and there is none left to wed us."
A flood of burning color made the face of Memene more lovely still. She
covered her hot cheeks with her hands. When she looked up again, she
met the troubled gaze of the king with a brave smile.
"Thou knowest the words of the ancient ceremony, Minos, dost thou not?"
she asked him.
"Aye, by rote."
"Yonder is wine, and here be lights. Let us say it, each to the other.
I think that those who watch from above, seeing how it is with us,
shall not greatly blame."
Minos stretched a rug on the rock floor and fetched a gleaming ilium
flagon, which he set on one of the chests. Then lover and maid knelt
before one of the flaring torches with joined hands. Sentence by
sentence, they repeated the responses of the quaint old Sardanian
marriage rite, through to the "Be thou mine and I thine until our call
cometh." They touched the wine with their lips, then rose and passed
their hands with fingers locked above the flame of the torch.
"My bride!" Minos whispered, and gathered the girl in his arms. The
great gray dogs looked on with curious eyes. So were Minos and Memene
wed.
* * * * *
Within a week after the death march of the Sardanian nation, the fires
that had lingered in the crater of the Gateway to the Future had passed
away, and that hill was cold and still as any in the ring of the
valley. On its slopes the grass and herbiage withered, and the snows
fell. For a few days the steeps swarmed with goats, the hardy animals
outliving the last of the ponies; but they, too, soon died of the cold
and starvation.
The big bonfires that the people had built around their last camp had
long since burned out to ashes. The mantle of darkness that fell over
the valley was broken only by the blaze on the hill of Latmos, which
Minos tended, laboring mightily, and hewing therefor vast quantities of
wood from the stark hymanan forests.
The task of bringing the wood up the mountainside through the snow
overtaxed even his great strength, if he would have enough to keep
his fire big and bright. Leaving three of the younger dogs with the
Princess Memene, he took Pallas and the other three, one day, and set
off for the storehouse at the outer foothills of the north pass to
fetch his sledge.
On his way to the pass, he stopped at the Gateway. He climbed the
rugged terraces, passed the arch and the spiral pathway, groping his
way in the darkness, and once more, and for the last time, stood within
the temple of his father's god.
The night was clear, and the polar stars shone brightly down. Some
portion of their radiance penetrated through the open summit of the
mountain, making faint twilight within it. Fierce gusts of wind
shrieked and eddied through the giant cone, tossing with them swirls of
drifting snow. The gale clutched at the cloak of the king. The white
snow-wraiths leaped and danced. In the wild moaning of the wind, it
were easy to fancy that the ghosts of the dead Sardanians were wailing
above the ruins of their temple. In that place of gloom Minos tarried
but a little while, then went his way.
Returning with his sledge some two hours later, the king found that a
new and powerful life had entered the valley. As he passed across the
snow-fields where once had been the marshes, he heard a far-away and
hideous howling break forth from the cliffs of the Gateway. It was
answered by the snarling of his dog-pack. The four as one turned in
their traces and strained toward the hill, mouthing their challenge
loud. From the Latmos hill echoed the baying of their three fellows.
Well did Minos, the hunter, know the meaning of the outcry above him.
Holding back his dogs sternly, he peered up the towering mass of the
mountain. Outlined against the dark body of a cliff, he saw, or thought
he saw, two monstrous white forms roaring and striking. Cracking his
long lash above the backs of his unwilling beasts, he hurried to Latmos.
With the far-flaming menace of the fiery hills removed, the monarchs of
the wilderness, the polar bears, had come to Sardanes, where they never
had dared to penetrate before. They had crept over the mountain rim,
and were quarreling among themselves as they tore at the carcasses of
the dead goats on the sides of the Gateway. How long would it be ere
they came up against Latmos? And should they beset his path when he
ventured on his journey northward? thought the king with sudden fear.
What then? He carried no weapons that would slay from afar, as did the
son of the snows who had gone before him.
From that day on Minos went no more afield. With the aid of the dogs
and the sledge, he hauled huge store of wood and piled it against the
cliffs at either side of the cave entrance. Laborious as was the work,
he carried large quantities of the fuel to the interior of the cavern
and stacked it against the walls.
Weeks grew into months. Darkness and starlight alternated, grew at
length into gray twilight, as the slow sun journeyed farther and
farther southward. Still Minos and his princess dwelt in their cavern
and kept life strong within them. With wood and skins and cloths, of
which there was an almost inexhaustible store in the cave, the king
constructed a sort of room, by walling off a gallery that branched into
the cliff from one side of the main cavity and adjoining the entrance.
That made much smaller the space he must heat and light. He abandoned
the practise of keeping a fire on the plateau, kindling it there only
when he made an excursion after more wood. In that way he cut down his
labor much.
For food, they drew on the vast granary bins that lined the sides of
the cavern, supplemented with dried fruits and honey. In one of the
galleries of the cave was a stock of smoked meats, and that Minos
reserved for the dogs, fearing that a diet of bread alone might cause
the animals to sicken.
His labor and forethought, his splendid struggle against odds, did not
avert the lash of calamity. Unlooked for, it dealt him a stroke that
ended all his hopes.
He had brought a sledge load of wood up the hillside one day, and had
loosed the dogs from their harness and driven them through the passage.
Ahead of him, the lithe beasts scrambled over the rock into the cavern.
As active as they, he put a hand to the rock and leaped. A loop of the
harness he bore caught on a projection on the boulder and threw him.
He fell heavily on his face. His ax of ilium slipped from his belt and
fell beneath him, its keen-edged blade uppermost. His head struck on
it, and it bit deep into his right temple.
* * * * *
With his senses swaying, Minos dragged himself to his feet. He reeled
along the passage to the curtained entrance to his home. Nearly spent,
and with the bright blood coursing down his neck, he staggered
straight through the fire and fell across his couch. He heard the cry
of Memene, his loved one, but it sounded faint and far. He felt her
arms close around him, and then darkness let fall its heavy curtain
over his mind.
Days passed while he lay in a stupor and strange dream dramas played
themselves out around his pillow. Again he stood in the narrow pass,
and stout Sardanians went down before his good sword. Again he stood on
Latmos's side and saw the stricken people march boldly to their doom,
only that time the one most loved of all went with them, and he was
chained and could not follow.
Vainly he called out to her, "Memene! Memene!"
With that dear name upon his lips, the king awoke. He found her head
pillowed close to his own. Her arms were around his neck. She was
weeping softly and gazing into his face, her black eyes filled with
sorrow and terror. Around the couch he heard the dogs whining and
growling. It was very cold, and only one faint ray of light struggled
through a cleft in the rock above the passage that went into the little
room.
Minos strove to raise himself on his elbow, but found himself too weak.
"What hath befallen," he muttered, "and why is it so cold and dark?"
"Oh, Minos, Minos," wailed the girl, "our end is come. Our fire--'tis
gone. Worn out with tending thee, for thou hast lain sick these many
days, I did give way and sleep--for but a little hour, I thought--and
when I woke our fire was gone. Not one little spark was left. Ah,
Minos, thou diest, and I myself have slain thee, my love, my love."
With a mighty effort he raised an arm and set it about her. "Nay, fret
not for that which thou couldst not prevent," he whispered. "Minos is
content to die. It was to be. The end cometh but a little sooner, this
way."
A burst of howling from without interrupted him and goaded the dogs to
frenzy.
Memene shuddered. "The great white bears are there," she whispered.
"They have howled for hours. Soon will they enter and rend us. I have
tied the dogs fast so that they might not rush out and fight and be
slain--_Ah--see!_"
Horror struck, she pointed to the passage. Overcoming by degrees his
fear of an unseen trap, one of the monsters had penetrated the pass
and was clawing at the rock. The way was narrow, but, by dint of much
writhing and squeezing, the bear reared his ponderous bulk over the
boulder. In the dusk of the passageway his shaggy head and colossal
shoulders shone white. His cruel jaws slavered as he craned his head
around the turn in the wall, swaying it slowly from side to side, as
his blazing merciless eyes sought out his prey.
At that sight the Princess Memene turned from fear to rage. Like a
tigress with young, she leaped from the couch, caught a spear from the
wall, and dashed into the passage.
"Thou shalt not!" she shrieked, scarce knowing what she said. "Thou
shalt not enter! My king and I shall die in peace, and not be torn by
thee!"
As she screamed she struck furiously at the bear's head with the ilium
spear, and gashed him deeply. Wedged where he could go neither backward
nor forward without great effort, the huge animal was hard put to it to
defend himself from the attack of the infuriated woman. Dauntlessly she
faced him, thrusting with the spear.
Minos, on his couch, strove with all his will and strength to rise up
and go to her aid, but so weak was he that all his struggling did not
lift his shoulders from his pillow.
In the narrow confines of the cave, the howling of the bear and the
snarling of the seven dogs, gone mad at sight of their enemy and with
balked lust for fighting, made the din of an inferno. The gray snow
runners twisted and tore at their leashes, and leaped and leaped again,
only to fall back on the rock floor, as their ropes held.
Pallas alone used method. Finding her struggles for freedom in vain,
she turned on the stout rope and rent it with her teeth. Tearing at it
furiously, she weakened it. At last it gave way, and she bounded past
the princess and leaped straight in the monster's face.
Slashed and bleeding, with the sight of one eye nearly gone, the bear
was fully aroused. As the dog leaped, one powerful white paw swung,
armed with its spread of crescent claws. It caught Pallas in midair,
hurled her against the side of the passage, and she fell, her lifeblood
spurting from a jagged wound in her neck. Another stroke dashed the
spear from the hand of Memene.
Gathering his hind legs under him against the rock, the bear thrust
himself forward into the cave!